Hucklebuck recalls happy days of showbands and romance
A scene from Hucklebuck at Clonmel Junction Festival.
On the poster for writer/director Jack Reardon’s play Hucklebuck, which is about a night at a dancehall in rural Ireland in the summer of 1969, it says “directed by the son of a Dromkeen couple”. The Co Limerick parish reference hints at the fact that the playwright’s parents met and fell in love – as many Irish couples did a generation or two ago – while jiving in front of a showband.
“A version of the play, particularly the first half, is based on my parents,” says Reardon. “My dad arrived at the hall slightly late because he had to help his mum at home in the pub. His friends had been drinking across the road, so he said to himself, ‘Well, I won't bother going over to them because they're all drunk, I'll go across and I'll ask a girl to dance.’
“He walked across, he said to my mom, ‘What's your name?’ She said, ‘Rebecca Richardson.’ Being surnamed Reardon, he said, ‘Well, when we get married, you won't have to change your initials.’ Forty-odd years later, they're married and on holidays together right now, having the best time. It’s very much a play for them.”
Hucklebuck takes its name from the Brendan Bowyer and the Royal Showband hit single from 1965, which was the anthem of a generation. The showband era had a profound influence on Irish social life, particularly in the 1960s and ’70s, playing live cover versions of popular hits of the day, and bringing a night of excitement at least once a week into the lives of young people living close to a crossroads.
“The showbands were a phenomenon,” says Reardon. “It was the perfect storm. We were stepping away from de Valera’s Ireland into the Seán Lemass era. We were stepping away from agriculture into industry. To quote the script, ‘We were the generation laying foundations for the alterations of decades to come.’ It was already a time of change on a much grander landscape. You started to have writers like Edna O'Brien or Angela Macnamara, who were giving a voice to young women, in particular about it being OK to want more than what the church tells you you're destined to have.
“A lot was already happening at the time socially, and then in the heart of that you had an amazing grouping of artists. By today's standards, they would be played on 2fm, but in the ’60s they were getting whatever records they could, listening to the likes of Elvis, and going, ‘We can do that and we can put on a bit of a show with it.’ The voices of Brendan Bowyer, Joe Dolan and Dickie Rock still stand up today. The soundtrack of the play’s score is incredible.”
There are several strands to the play, which has a hammer-blow ending. One feature it brings to life is the intoxicating feeling of young love, the exhilarating sense of anticipation, excitement and nervousness of falling in love for the first time. The script highlights a moment when Irish women had limited horizons; it was a time when, as one character puts it, “There are no women in Ireland, just mothers and wives.”
Hucklebuck, which is full of humour and social detail, also captures the jeopardy and promise on the night a showband came to town. After the first fearless man crossed over to the ladies side of the dancehall to ask for a dance, he broke an invisible seal. The stakes were high for him, but after his lead came a stampede.
“I like thinking,” says the 27-year-old Reardon, “about the opportunity that it would have been to arrive at a dance hall and the first thing you're going to say to someone is, ‘Would you like to dance?’ I'm sure if you went into a nightclub now and you went over and asked a girl to dance, the response would be, ‘Absolutely not.’ You don’t do that.
“It’s in the script that guys had to go down the line, saying, ‘Would you like to dance?’ A girl might say no. It's our version of swiping right. How soul-crushing to not get matched with someone, to have to put yourself out there, in the flesh and in front of peers in your locality. There's so much tension to it – if it goes bad, it’s mortifying, but if it goes right, it’s incredible. You get to dance.”
- Hucklebuck previews at the Clonmel Junction Festival, 7.30pm, Thursday, 29 June, and runs until Sunday, 9 July. For a full programme of events at the festival see: www.junctionfestival.com
